Dr Philip Augar

Distinguished Lecture Series
- Should we trust our banks?

Public lectures | Seminars

The crisis of 2008-9 raised serious concerns about our banks, a group of institutions previously regarded as ‘boring but safe’. Panic in the High St, last minute government rescues and evidence of cynical cheating changed all that.

A decade on, have the reforms changed the business model and culture and do we have any alternative but to trust our banks?

Event details

Philip Augar is an author and former investment banker. A PhD in History, he has been speaking, writing and broadcasting about the challenges of modern capitalism and banking for 20 years.

He has written six books, including the acclaimed Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism (2000) and his latest work, The Bank That Lived a Little: Barclays in the Age of the Very Free Market (2018). He contributes to the Financial Times and other publications and appears regularly on BBC radio and television.

Philip has held a number of advisory and non-executive roles in the public and private sectors and chaired the panel reviewing post-18 education for the UK government in 2018-19.

More than a quarter of a century into the digital revolution, and with wide applications of artificial intelligence on the horizon, the dramatic changes in technology have raced ahead of social institutions and the organisation of the economy. How do the rules and policies governing economic life need to adapt to the challenges posed by technological change, for everyone to benefit?